


The Times Before

by Guy_Fleegman



Category: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what to tag this, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 05:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16152143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guy_Fleegman/pseuds/Guy_Fleegman
Summary: Four times Willoughby was there for Dixon, and the first time he wasn't.





	The Times Before

 

The station was quiet, save the soft sounds of shuffling paper. The sun shone in through the window, heating the air a considerable amount, giving it a stifling feel.

Chief Willoughby ran the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead, his attention drifting from the papers in front of him. His eyes roamed around, looking to settle on something interesting, when they landed on his newest hire.

Jason Dixon sat at his desk, one hand propped under his chin as the other lazily flipped through a folder given to him by one of his co-workers. The folder held the protocol in case of a fire. Dixon furrowed his brow as he read the same two sentences over and over, never quite comprehending what the words meant.

Willoughby had gotten some raised eyebrows at his choice of hire, especially from other officers, but he had seen something in the kid, and he looked forward to the day others see what he saw, though that day seemed far, far off.

He was startled out of his musings by a knock at his office door. It was his desk Sergeant with a phone held to his chest as he said, "It's Mrs. Fran, Chief."

Willoughby nodded his head dejectedly as he picked up his phone, closing his eyes and taking a slow, deliberate breath.

The desk Sergeant went back to his desk and transferred the line, he turned around to see Willoughby with a false smile on his face as he spoke to the woman.

After a brief conversation, Willoughby hung up, grabbed his black hat, and stepped out of his office.

"Dixon," he called, making his way to the door.

"Yeah, Chief?"

"That important?" Willoughby gestured to the open folder on Dixon's desk.

He received a fervent shake of the head as answer.

He nodded, pursing his lips.

"I got a call, think it'd be perfect for your first job."

Dixon stared at him, his mouth agape, eyes wide. He had sweat stains on his uniform and his cheeks were flushed.

When he continued to sit there unmoving, Willoughby shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Sometime today, preferably."

The words sent Dixon clumsily to his feet, he quickly gathered his gear, and, sliding on his wrap around sunglasses, he stepped beside Willoughby, waiting for the other man to lead the way.

With a small wave from Willoughby, the two departed.

Ebbing, Missouri wasn't a large town by any definition of the word, but with the condition most of the roads were in, and the seemingly nonsensical layout to the roads, it was going to take around twenty minutes for the officers to reach their destination.  

Willoughby planned to make good use of the time.

Though he had hired Dixon a full two weeks earlier, he hadn't had much time to get to know the younger man. 

The air was on full blast in the car, bringing a smile to Willoughby's face as he sent a glance over at Dixon.

A few minutes passed, Dixon tapping his finger to the music that was softly drifting through the car, until Willoughby decided it was time to speak.

"You're welcome," he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

"...thank you?" came the quiet reply.

A beat passed.

Willoughby sent another glance at Dixon, who was once again contently tapping his finger as he watched trees blur together outside the window.

"Aren't you gonna ask what you're supposed to be thankin' me for?"

"Oh," his finger stopped tapping. "I just figured it was for hiring me an' stuff."

Willoughby paused for a moment, "Well, it wasn't. You're thankin' me for getting you outta that oven we stupidly call an office."

No response.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

"Last weekend I took my daughters fishing. My youngest, Polly, is only a year old, so I don't think she really appreciated the full fishing experience, but my oldest, Jane, is three, and boy did she have a fuckin' blast," a smile had taken up residence on his face, and now it was accompanied by a light laugh. "I let her hold the fishing rod, and her face just lit up like a Christmas tree. Best fishing trip I've been on yet."

The story had gotten Dixon's attention, for he was now looking directly at Willoughby, though still he didn't say anything.

"You ever go fishing?" Willoughby breezily asked.

This question got Dixon to stop staring. He looked away and brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

"Couple times with my dad, long time ago."

"Ya like it?"

"Don't really remember."

Another pause.

"Well, I'm heading up to my cabin in a couple weeks, and Mrs. Willoughby is taking the girls to visit their grandma 'round that same time." He looked at Dixon. "You want to go with me?"

Willoughby had invited all of his employees to go fishing with him at one point. Most happily accept while some politely come up with an excuse about having plans with a distant relative who's only in town for the one day.

Willoughby waited to see which one Dixon was.

"You serious, Chief?"

He nodded his head, flicking on his turning signal.

"Of course, I'd lov-I'd really like that, Chief," he said, attempting to tame his excitement, Willoughby could tell.

"Great."

The car slowed to stop as they pulled up the short driveway which led to a quaint brick house.

They parked halfway up the driveway and got out of the car to join the woman standing next to a rather tall white oak tree.

"Oh, Bill," the woman, Mrs. Fran, cried, wrapping Willoughby in a tight embrace. "You-you told me to call you if it ever happened again, and-and, please just help him!"

Mrs. Fran's panicked demeanor had caused Dixon to tense up, his hand resting on top of his baton, not quite sure what was going on.

"Well, you see this young man right here?" Willoughby waved a hand in his companions’ direction while keeping a calming arm around Mrs. Fran's shoulder. "This is Officer Dixon, and he's gonna get Brad down safe and sound, just you wait."

Dixon furrowed his brow and stepped closer to the two, following their gaze up into the tree.

About twenty-five feet up the tree, almost hidden amongst the leafy branches, sat a fluffy, white cat. It looked down, unimpressed.

"Up you go," Willoughby said with a grin that appeared malicious to Dixon, though Dixon wasn't known to be very good at picking up what others put down.

The mulch that surrounded the tree crunched under Dixon's bouncing heal as he eyed the little bastard in the tree.

Willoughby let go of Mrs. Fran and approached Dixon.

"Pretty much everyone on the force has had to do this before," Willoughby said.

"Even you?"

A small laugh, "Yeah, even me a couple of times."

"Ain't cats in trees the fire departments problem?"

"Brad gets stuck in a tree at least once a month, fire department got fed up and told ol' Mrs. Fran to fuck off, so she came crying to me, askin' me to arrest them or something. I told her to just call me anytime it happened again." He clapped the younger man on the shoulder. "And here we are."

"Why didn't you just make the cat 'disappear'?"

Willoughby stared at Dixon incredulously, opened his mouth and closed it again like a fish.

"I'm- I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that. Now, get your ass up in that tree," he paused. "That's an order." He added, thinking it was too much, but it seemed to work.

Dixon warily approached the tree, and after circling to the other side of it, he saw multiple, foot-long wooden planks nailed to the tree’s side, working as a ladder that led almost all the way to the cat’s location.

He rolled his shoulders, handed his sunglasses to Willoughby, and started his ascent.

Willoughby watched on with a smile, silently laughing at the way Dixon idiotically climbed. Never before had Willoughby thought it possible to idiotically climb a tree, yet here he was thinking that exact thought.

"Use your hands to hold onto the wood too," he shouted. "Didn't mean for that to come out gay soundin'."

Dixon was a few feet from the fucking cat, he reached out and roughly grabbed it, pressing it tightly to his chest as he shakily took a breath.

"Don't look down, don't look down, if ya start to fall, drop the cat and hug this tree harder than you've ever hugged anythin' in your entire goddamn life," he mumbled to himself in a quivering voice.

Twenty feet from the ground, sweat was dripping into his eyes, stinging and blurring his vision as his clammy hand moved as fast as it could to the next plank.

Fifteen feet from the ground and Willoughby could see when Dixon put his weight on a plank, that it wasn't going to hold, but before he could shout out, Dixon was falling through the air.

Dixon collided with the ground roughly and with a thud, followed by a loud exclamation. He threw Brad aside and rolled and writhed in place, his hands instinctively going to his injured leg before he could even process that he was hurt.

"Brad!" Mrs. Fran yelled, running to pick up the discarded cat.

"Brad?!" Dixon shouted. "Fuckin' Brad!" He grabbed handfuls of mulch and began throwing them at the spluttering woman. "Bitch, fucking bitch!" he yelled.

"Hey, hey," Willoughby said, grabbing Dixon's wrists and holding them still. "Calm down, let me see. I need you to calm the fuck down."

Once Dixon had stopped struggling, throwing his head back so it rested on the ground, Willoughby let his wrists go with a warning look, and turned his attention to his leg.

He made a face upon catching sight of it.

It was definitely broken, the leg bent at a sickeningly unnatural angle, and was already swollen to twice its normal size. Yeah, that had to hurt, Willoughby thought.  He could hear Dixon’s quieted whimpers.

He delicately rolled up the black pant leg, his hands faltering slightly with every groan or hiss of pain that Dixon let out. He shot Dixon a sympathetic look, but quickly finished his task, revealing a nauseating blue and purple bruise that ran along the front of Dixon’s leg. But it didn’t look like the bone had broken the skin, Willoughby thought.

"Mrs. Fran, can you please call an ambu-" he turned around and saw that she had gone inside.

He dropped his head and paused for a moment.

"Bitch," Dixon muttered again, his hands balled up tightly in the fabric of his pants.

"Hey, we don't call people bitches when in uniform."

"Since when?"

"Since forever, now shut up while I figure out what to do."

Shaky, uneven breathes were coming out of Dixon's chapped, parted lips and he was resisting the urge to curse out that bitch till the cows came home, but then Willoughby rested a hand on his uninjured leg, and Dixon calmed slightly.

"Ok, here's what we're gonna do. Ya listening?"

A nod accompanied by a thick swallow.

"Alright, I'm gonna help ya to your feet and we're gonna head to the hospital in my car. It'll be much faster than an ambulance anyway."

Dixon trusted him, drew in a preparatory breath, and nodded again.

A small yelp made its way passed his lips when he stood, but Willoughby didn't comment so Dixon merely ducked his head as he hopped, his arm over the Chief's shoulder, to the car.

Each hopped jarred his leg, sending waves of nausea through him, but he simply bit his lip and kept as quiet as possible.

They made it to the hospital in ten minutes flat. Guess the only people in town allowed to speed were the police. Made sense to Dixon, though many things made sense to Dixon with as much morphine pumping through his system as there was. 

He was laid-up in a hospital bed, his right leg in a cast that went from his foot to his upper thigh. It was clean and quite possibly the whitest thing he'd seen in his entire life, though he was sure it wouldn't stay like that for long.

The door to his room opened and his eyes took the scenic route in getting to the face of the person visiting.

"Chief," he smiled. "You look taller."

"Well, I’m taller than you, even when you’re not layin’ down."

A quick smile was his only response. 

An uncomfortable silence fell between them as Willoughby fiddled with the candy bar he had brought. His wife had told him you were supposed to bring flowers, but somehow, he didn't think that'd be quite Dixon's cup of tea, so he decided on a Twix bar.

"Treating you alright here, are they?"

Dixon thought about it for a moment before nodding his head.

The Chief pulled a chair from the corner and sat in it, crossing his legs.

"You've got quite the temper on ya, don't ya, Dixon?”

That statement sobered Dixon up slightly. He tried to sit up, but just ended up painfully tugging on his leg, before settling back into the position he was in to begin with.

"What-what makes you say that?"

"Just an observation, really."

"Oh."

"Now, I know you were hurting, and not in your right mind, but next time, could ya please try _not_ calling the helpless, old woman a bitch?"

"Right, sure thing, Chief."

"I'd really appreciate it." He set the Twix on the table next to Dixon's bed. "Brought you something."

Dixon looked over and saw the shiny, gold wrapper. It wasn't his favorite kind, but it was the first candy bar to make him feel warm inside his chest.

"Thanks, Chief."

The silence returned but it wasn't as uncomfortable as before.

Willoughby stayed sitting by his side, reading a magazine that he found on the table, until Dixon drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you think Dixon is acting out of character, remember that this is him interacting with someone he reveres and would have no reason to treat the way he treats most other people.


End file.
